Follow-ups:

Anti-Abi ads still abound and the first 2.0 beta is about to be antiquated.

This week in development

Tomas expands the clipboard capabilities, MailMerge to become a new animal, Windows gets several big boosts and Beta2 soon to arrive.
Also, one of the more productive weeks for the user discussions, on our mailing list and at FootNotes.

Request for user assistance

If you want an equally rich and powerful Windows release, we really, really could use some Windows developers.
A whole mess of people with even just an hour a week could help.
Of course, the "three with only two hours a week" model hasn't been helping!
We're desperate!
We'll take a line a day if there's enough of you!
Please help...please!
Doesn't a platform like yours deserve a chance?

Windows users, your help is doubly requested*.
We would like to see more bug reports coming from the Windows crowd,
so, if you're feeling more daring, please download and try out the Win32 binaries when they're available.
If you want some sweet functionality in AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom, you will have to participate.
You could also consider joining Project Blue Ant.

*requested: Danger, a recent incident suggests that this may cause anxiety, anger and/or mood shifts.
Windows users not taking MAOI's should have some level of alcohol within their bloodstream.
*University of Twente: I believe "Twente" is nederland for "Porn."

This Issue

And remember, I give you an email address so you can talk to me, in case you're not on either mailing list.

Traffic on the
developer mailing list
has settled at about 200-400 postings per week.
This week, interesting topics on the developer list included:

commit (HEAD): win32 clipboard on demand
and
commit (HEAD): toward AW native clipboard
:
Tomas is making it possible to post data to the Windows clipboard beyond the standard RTF.
The greatest plus to all of this is that less data will be lost or mangled (particularly bidi)
by using proper Unicode (Abi) to \*t*char (RTF) or binary (DOC) markers.
Unfortunately, this will not be see until after the release of AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom.

patch for libgnomedb headers
,
[Fwd: Re: patch for libgnomedb headers]
and
Re: patch for libgnomedb headers
:
Rodrigo Moya gets back to work on the GDA plugin you've all come to know and love as "MailMerge."
Rodrigo's been snooping over at Open Office's Data Sources dialogue just to see what kind of system he might want to build up.
Windows users uninterested in Open Office can simply think of Data Sources as being an embedded Access clone;
you can view the current Windows' version here.
Meantime, Dom wants to push for commandline functionality and limited application editability.
If you don't know, Abi's AbiCommand plugin allows for AbiWord to act as a document server,
which can possess increased power if there's a text-only file that can be passed via standard in/out (text only) method.
The Mergeant
format is considered to some extent for this.

commit (HEAD): New toolbar customization system + slight fixes
:
Christian, HIG's new best friend, has gone to the trouble to alter some of the toolbar options.
After some minor refactoring and a new API, you can now lock or reset the toolbar layout.
Sure, I could talk about the technicals, but you'd probably just want to see the end result.
Implemented only on the GNOME 2 platform (though, it is cross platform),
I present Lock Layout.

Collapsible Outlining and Bidi
:
Randy Kramer, who's working on getting collapsible outlining to work on Abiword,
has some unanswered question about how bidi would affect it.
Nudge, nudge; wink, wink.

1.99.2? aka Beta2?
:
Martin has gotten release antsy while playing around in Nippon.
If things go well, you may see "Beta2" available by the end of Sunday.

Traffic on the user mailing list
is sporadic at best.
Often, a good topic comes up, but users tend to only respond to the original poster rather than the list (as well),
which limits what I would add, as the only lone threads I post are announcements of importance or points of great interest.
This week, interesting topics on the user list included:

Re: Abiword1.99 [Solved]
:
Keith Powell, a SuSE user, and James Ogley, our SuSE builder, has figured out a problem that might be of issue for SuSE/KDE users.
If your highlighting gets all funky, the problem may be due to gnome-sessions-daemon, or more accurately, the lack of it.
For whatever odd reason this dependency cropped up, you can fix it by copying the gsd to your KDE Autostart folder.
Thank you, Keith, for bringing that useful information back to the list.

Testing latest Win32 builds
and
Re: Testing latest Win32 builds
:
Boris Kortiak experiences a problem when using the Win32 nightly binaries (thanks to all of you who do test these).
It should be pointed out that the nightly builds from pchasm (Kenneth "Jeremy" Davis)
should have any installer/downloader issues reported back there (to Jeremy).
All other Win32 issues can be reported to Bugzilla or the user list (if it's not particularly a bug).
And, remember, it's usually not you who has done something wrong ^_^

Traffic outside of the AbiDomain is tracked and occasionally reported.
This weeks includes selection(s) from: FootNotes

Now, before I get into the FootNotes business, (capital F and N!)
I would like to draw attention to readers and commentors a small point.
I would like a better idea as to whom a reply is being made for.
Seriously, I'm lining up a magazine to see where the threading is!
You can change the subject, so, please, do so!
Of course, FootNotes could implement something like ASE Forums have, and add a number to the "Re:".
That could help too....
Just the ramblings of an editor on decaf; pay no mind.

Re: AbiWord Weekly News #150
:
Should you click your brains out on that anti-abi advertisement?
Yes, yes you should.
I should consult with my lawyer first, but from WIRIC (What I Read In Chat), I think you can.
It's a shame that TextMaker can't,
as No One In Particular put it,
"stand by the features of their product rather than badmouthing" their competitors.
Must be based on American campaign advertisements.
In other news, AbiPresents is a much better name than Criawips
As for FootNotes, I think Ryan
put it best in the convoluted way of supporting FootNotes, however, he has under-estimated the size of the footprint of the Gecko rendering engine.
The Abi->Nautilus->Galeon->Gecko combo will at least octople the size of Abi's footprint.
Due to consistency requirements, Gedit will need to at a four meg blanket, but that would be the least of the problems,
as the snowballing of Galeon* and Nautilus, Abi could grow indefinately.
As a result, I recommend viewing FootNotes via the wget http://www.gnomedesktop.org | less command.
Lynx is for weaklings who fear markup.

Re: AbiWord Weekly News #150
:
Do people notice my Disclaimer?
Slashdot users may have heard of RTFA, but do I need to say RTFThread?
Before typing off in such a fury, make sure you have a really good reason to yell...yeah.
Dom clears up the discussion here,
in case you, too, had worries or wonders about Dom's dead gnome dying after finding out it was dead.
You know what I've learned from all of this?
I've learned
I should just post the AWN as comments, as certain quotes get me funny points ;o)

Re: AbiWord Weekly News #150
:
"In the vastness of space, one lone voice in all of the universe..." actually pays attention.
So special, I gave this one it's own spot on the AWN.
This voice uses an extra "r", but I can accept this failing.

Re: AbiWord Weekly News #150
:
RedHat users having issues with libgal dependencies?
After Beta2's release, that issue just disappears (if you don't mind a wait).
If you'd still like to try out daily builds of CVS HEAD RH9 or GTK2 rpm's,
Marc has made them available here.

*Juniper: this is my new form of entertainment. for those of you who need to know, I usually see the name James here.
*Kenneth "Jeremy" Davis: He explained that going-by-th-middle-name-thing to me once, but I've since forgotten it.
Also, system-related work is Win32 unless stated otherwise.
*Jordi Mas: system-related work is Win32 unless stated otherwise.
*PW: I don't know what PW is, but I think the 'P' stands for Porn

Current pows are here.
This will probably be replaced next week if not this very week.

Name: More Windows MaintainersDescription: Jordi and Jeremy could always use helpAdvertisement: Help free people from the oppression of MSWord today!Recommended Outline: You must become magical to know how to fix this.Comments: Wouldn't be a bad idea to start with the printing bug...System: WindowsChallenge level: ****. 4 stars out of 5Current Heros: Jordi Mas, Jeremy Davis

Few analysts notices ResoUnconf staying a steady medium and ClosedAssi slipping into the negative,
as VeriNew reached and astounding number of 213!
You get enough dedicated and hardworking users willing to test things out, you'd be amazed at what can be accomplished!
What we're wonder now is, "Will Beta2 testers surpass that number!?"

For information about how to view the chart, please read 142's Special Interest.

This is an AbiWord Weekly News original concept: The Release Hackdown.
In the table below, you can watch what bugs are being fixed in preparation for the very next release.
Check the key at the bottom to understand formatting.

No pressure, guys, I'm sure only 2000 or so people will be watching to see what you do weekly.
That breaks down to about 285 people daily and 12 people hourly, so, it's like being peeked at once every five minutes, literally.
"Isn't that veird!?"

Open Source, Open Books.

Last Updated: April 10, 2003

Approximately once a month, don't hedge bets, I'll get this updated by asking (read: whining at) dom.
In the meantime, whenever you want to see how much is in and where it gets diverted, just peek down here.

Word of caution, numbers lightly fudged due to (hopefully) temporarily incomplete data.
Like a consultant's suggested price, you'll find hidden meaning in the data if you stare long and hard.
Surgeon's General's Warning: Staring long and hard may have psychotropic affects;
keep out of reach of people who like that sort of thing.

I cannot promise the time of de-fudging, nor can I promise there will be de-fudging any time soon.
However, I feel confident that there will be some de-fudging going on.

PLEASE!
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donating money. The money go to a general AbiWord "fund",
presently hosted by Dom Lachowicz (cinamod@hotmail.com).

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